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Mass Effect: Andromeda |OT| Ryders on the Storm

nOoblet16

Member
I'm not understanding the crafting system. Take this for example, the Black Widow sniper rifle is suppose to have 3 bullets in its clip and about 637 damage:

1) I developed a Black Widow with a laser aug and 2 augs for bonus damage against shields and armour. The stats told me I got 3 clips and 637 damage, but the gun turned out so weak that I couldn't even kill an unarmoured/unshielded Kett soldier with a headshot. It took 3 full bullets, despite the fact that 637 is more than enough to kill a Kett soldier without armour.

2) I develop the same exact gun but without the laser aug, I end up with a Black Widow with not only 1 bullet in the clip instead of the advertised 3, but ONE Max ammo...ONE !!

Wtf? If there are drawbacks to using augs or something else then it's not clearly conveyed here.
 

JayB1920

Member
Not many. I'm still early in the game. Did a few on the second planet you land on. The sand planet, and these are painfully boring, and some of them are way too long. The performance on Xbox One is also horrendous. The game looks broken when I compare it to the 60 FPS PC gameplay on Youtube.

I see. At minimum the character quests are worth doing so far but some of the ones under Helius assignments are decent enough as well imo. Don't waste time with additonal
Tasks though especially the gathering/scanning ones.
 

Tacitus_

Member
Uh, great. The game locks up if a Fiend grabs you and dies mid-animation. I just dodged out of ones face, teleported back to its paw, it bit me and keeled over. You just get a black screen with the loading icon, but the UI stays up and the companions keep talking to each other.
 

Babyshams

Member
Does anyone else find the resource cost for developing weapons and armor to be so high that it discourages you from using it?

I find myself never developing anything until I at least have level 5 version of the blueprint because resources seem very hard to come by.
 

nOoblet16

Member
I see. At minimum the character quests are worth doing so far but some of the ones under Helius assignments are decent enough as well imo. Don't waste time with additonal
Tasks though especially the gathering/scanning ones.

Yea allies and relationship quests as well as Helius quests have laid out story and they have significance. The one under Tasks are fetch quests with scanning and stuff, basically your usual detective vision, witcher sense quests...BUT some of them do provide decent amount of story and sometimes it can lead to longer quest chains as well.
 
Yea allies and relationship quests as well as Helius quests have laid out story and they have significance. The one under Tasks are fetch quests with scanning and stuff, basically your usual detective vision, witcher sense quests...BUT some of them do provide decent amount of story and sometimes it can lead to longer quest chains as well.

The Alec Ryder stuff is decent, I like how they approached that, some nice stuff there for long term fans.
 

JayB1920

Member
Yea allies and relationship quests as well as Helius quests have laid out story and they have significance. The one under Tasks are fetch quests with scanning and stuff, basically your usual detective vision, witcher sense quests...BUT some of them do provide decent amount of story and sometimes it can lead to longer quest chains as well.

Yeah I think people are being to quick to judge the side content when saying it's Like DAI or a MMO. Either they haven't gotten to some of the better ones or are simply ignoring them and judging on the wrong quests that aren't pretending to be more than fetch quests. I've been enjoying them all so far because even some Of the additional tasks have enough narrative reason to be interesting.
 
I feel like I made a mistake picking
Voeld
as my second planet...

I just left a big ass, kinda bland looking desert for........another one with a palette swap. Iirc, someone said the other one is a jungle. I probably should have done that one. Maybe it'll pick up when i assault the Kett base.
 

CSJ

Member
Oh my god the quest system is starting to frustrate me.

- Some clearly finished with no "wait" or "go to" are staying in my active log with no tracking.
- Others won't show where to go anymore when they once did and manually finding a video online and following the steps shows a bugged step.
- Some don't show on the map unless you select it and dive through 50 quests checking to see if it's actually listed on the planet sub category or not.
- I've now got a shit load of bugged tasks because a planet is finished but the tasks remaining on there are not and won't complete.

So my one piece of advice, if you get an on the spot side mission/task, do it then and there because holding it off and doing something else will eventually bug that step.

Fuck, even a mission to upgrade a Nomad item, I already built it and 2 days later I get a mission to make it.
OMG. BUGGED!

No game I've played they've made has been this bad at this system.
 

Roussow

Member
Okay, yep, this is what I remember about loving Mass Effect, every single bit of crew characterisation in the conversations on the ship between missions have been pretty exceptional, now that I've got everyone and can really dig in. People are just now starting to really open up, which is exciting. Was pleasantly surprised to hear some Cora's backstory, I really thought her motivations were going to be strictly tied to her prior relationship with Alec, but her Asari ties are really facsinating.

Make sure you're reading your emails, too. There's excellent writing in there, Gil's venture into poetry and the follow up message stand out to me as highlights off the top of my head.
 

nOoblet16

Member
Liam's loyalty mission is pretty cool, it's light hearted but it has some stuff that makes the combat interesting. They could have made it even cooler but probably ran into some sort of technical limitation.
 

AsianOni

Member
I'm not understanding the crafting system. Take this for example, the Black Widow sniper rifle is suppose to have 3 bullets in its clip and about 637 damage:

1) I developed a Black Widow with a laser aug and 2 augs for bonus damage against shields and armour. The stats told me I got 3 clips and 637 damage, but the gun turned out so weak that I couldn't even kill an unarmoured/unshielded Kett soldier with a headshot. It took 3 full bullets, despite the fact that 637 is more than enough to kill a Kett soldier without armour.

2) I develop the same exact gun but without the laser aug, I end up with a Black Widow with not only 1 bullet in the clip instead of the advertised 3, but ONE Max ammo...ONE !!

Wtf? If there are drawbacks to using augs or something else then it's not clearly conveyed here.

I crafted one like this and got no problems with it.
unknown.png

For the second point, are you sure it's not a Widow instead ?

EDIT: the 4th bullet comes from the armor gears.
 

nOoblet16

Member
I crafted one like this and got no problems with it.


For the second point, are you sure it's not a Widow instead ?

EDIT: the 4th bullet comes from the armor gears.

What armour are you using? And I'd like to know what augs you used for that gun, I want it. Also regarding Black Widow...you tell me da fuk is this shit !!?

7hxM6ra.jpg
 

nOoblet16

Member
I feel like I made a mistake picking
Voeld
as my second planet...

I just left a big ass, kinda bland looking desert for........another one with a palette swap. Iirc, someone said the other one is a jungle. I probably should have done that one. Maybe it'll pick up when i assault the Kett base.
It's not a choice
 

Pheace

Member
Which cryo pods would people recommend unlocking first? The timed unlocked research sounds fairly good but no idea how much I'll end up with eventually. If I end up with enough research/resources eventually anyway I'd rather get things I can't get otherwise I think (like upgraded vendor stocks)

Was thinking of Reconnaissance for the hidden caches but I think they're there anyway, it just highlights them? I can find them on my own if that's the case :)
 

Bisnic

Really Really Exciting Member!
I refuse to believe the Angaran introduction was intentional. Content had to have been cut.
Otherwise it's just awful writing. The mood and lead up is appropriate. They're speaking their own language. It's tense, but there's a sense of placidity between the groups. Then within seconds they're speaking English and referring to you as the pathfinder from the Milky Way. I hope this is actually explained in the lore at some point further on, because if not I can't see how this is anything but a combined production/writing mistake.



Yeah, still 1440p + 1.20% res scaling. FPS all over the place.

Yeah that scene was weird going from alien language to english for no apparent reason.

I mean, i know there is some translator device used by the Milky Way people so that everybody can understand each other, but this weird scene could have been easily fixed if there was a translator VI voice just saying "Alien Language translation complete" right before hearing english from them.
 

AsianOni

Member
What armour are you using? Also regarding Black Widow...you tell me da fuk is this shit !!?

7hxM6ra.jpg
Strange, I'm using Maverick Deadeye amors but after looking at it, it only gives "Weapon Spare Ammo", so not really more bullets/magazine.

The Black Widow blueprint also shows 4 bullets/magazine.
 

nOoblet16

Member
Many of the augments have drawbacks. You have to read them really carefully because a lot of them do lower damage.
The ones I used said nothing about drawbacks or atleast they didn't have any penalty written out in red font. Also 637 is the base damage of Black Widow 5, it's what you see when you try to craft it in development.

And it still doesn't really explain how I can have 1 max ammo hah
 
Yeah that scene was weird going from alien language to english for no apparent reason.

I mean, i know there is some translator device used by the Milky Way people so that everybody can understand each other, but this weird scene could have been easily fixed if there was a translator VI voice just saying "Alien Language translation complete" right before hearing english from them.

Agreed, it had been driving me nuts all of yesterday.
 
The ones I used said nothing about drawbacks or atleast they didn't have any penalty written out in red font. Also 637 is the base damage of Black Widow 5, it's what you see when you try to craft it in development.

And it still doesn't really explain how I can have 1 max ammo hah


A lot of the time it is only mentioned in the description and not listed as a penalty
 

Meifu

Member
Okay so I'll get a screen of this when i get off work today but...

I cleared out some kett base on the sawtooth ridge (I think thats what its called?) and got
a super ultra rare (red text) Kett Sniper Rifle that has bullets that explode on impact. Anyone else get this baller weapon?

Left off at the beginning of Voeld last night even though there seems to be a big war to fight on Eos now.

Using spoiler tags just to be safe.

Safe to say I'm having a blast.
 

Ushay

Member
Inherently divisive with strong evidence of muddled production.

It's desperately trying to shed trilogy baggage and embark on an entirely new journey and tell its own story, effectively acting as a soft reboot, yet feels too straddled to tropes and homages of the trilogy instead of legitimately investing in its own premise in the most comprehensive, committed way.

It takes huge steps towards a more mobile, versatile, and agency based combat system across wide open play space that the series hasn't seen anything like since the very original Mass Effect. It feels and looks satisfying to move, explore, and shoot. Yet it loses the tight corridor encounter design of the trilogy, the significantly reduced NPC control diminishes team synergy and usefulness.

The narrative and cast seed interesting plot points and developments (so far, I'm not finish), explore some interesting ideas that the trilogy did not, but as per the first point do feel noncommittal to the premise, and is lacking a strong overarching theme to drive the plot. It's disaster, but not enough to have presence. It's exploration, but distracted by character drama. It's a character piece, but hours can be spent meandering. It's like a hundred ideas and premises existed, and they're there and tied together well enough, the drive core is missing.

Mission and quest design is divisive. Some hate it. Others like it. Personally I feel even the heaviest criticism misses the point of them, and unfairly chastises a design that is reminiscent of Horizon, The Witcher 3, and others. Quest structure is basic and involved with a lot of detective vision and check listing, exactly like those games. What gives them purpose is narrative context. Whether or not that context matters to you, if you care about the planets and the stories behind them, or the extensive cast and their journey, is another matter entirely.

Production is muddied. Animation isn't as bad as some make it out to be (in my opinion), but is more lacking in emotional nuance. Eyebrows are too often stilted, eyes are dead; and these are windows to expressiveness. What could otherwise be a fine exchange can be, at worst, robotic and soulless. It's an unusual absence, like it's missing something, characters written and performed in ways faces don't always express. It's fixable; but whether or not it will be I do not know.

Music is okay, but unusually disconnected. Random planet ambience is moody and welcome, but the soundtrack has no presence.

I like the game. I think it's a lot of fun. I like the setting, the premise, and a lot of the ideas they're playing with. I don't feel it's executed (so far) with the strength the trilogy often had. I don't think it has the laser focus required for immediate investment. I feel the investment pays off the more you play, but it's a slow burn, and even then I can appreciate some people just not enjoying what's on offer. I wish it was more original towards its premise and setting, and less straddled by ideas that it seems the team felt defined Mass Effect but I don't feel actually do. But it still does well enough with those ideas anyway.

It could be better. It could be much worse. It's a good video game, so far.

Great post. I'm hoping things improve massively later this year after some updates and fizes, which is when I will play it
on Scorpio.
 

edgefusion

Member
There are too many guns and augments and things to craft, it's overwhelming. I look at this FAT list of craftable guns and just nope the fuck out.
 

Heshinsi

"playing" dumb? unpossible
So I figured out why the first monolith I visited in Eos wouldn't activate. The game seems to expect you activate them in a very specific order, if you do them in any other order they won't activate. This is reflected in dialogue. Peebee makes a reference to Drack, whom I already had met, yet there is no dialogue to reflect that. Compare this with the original trilogy, where dialogue would change slightly based on the order you completed missions. Liara's dialogue when you meet her was different depending on whether you did the Therum mission shortly after the Citadel or much later.



Every big galaxy has one of those massive black holes at the center, including the Milky Way. Better pack it up to the Magellanic Clouds.
That's not even the center of the galaxy though. Isn't the Helius Cluster on the outer rim?
 

nOoblet16

Member
Yeah that scene was weird going from alien language to english for no apparent reason.

I mean, i know there is some translator device used by the Milky Way people so that everybody can understand each other, but this weird scene could have been easily fixed if there was a translator VI voice just saying "Alien Language translation complete" right before hearing english from them.

Agreed, it had been driving me nuts all of yesterday.
The thing is, they shouldn't even need to wait for translation in the first place. Angarans have been meeting and talking with the Initiative people for like a year now, the translators should already been able to recognise their language otherwise how have the Angarans and Initiative managed for the past year?

So the only reason something like that would happen is if the translators were malfunctioning for some reason, and I'm pretty sure someone said that they were running into those problems lately.
 

BizzyBum

Member
Oh my god the quest system is starting to frustrate me.

- Some clearly finished with no "wait" or "go to" are staying in my active log with no tracking.
- Others won't show where to go anymore when they once did and manually finding a video online and following the steps shows a bugged step.
- Some don't show on the map unless you select it and dive through 50 quests checking to see if it's actually listed on the planet sub category or not.
- I've now got a shit load of bugged tasks because a planet is finished but the tasks remaining on there are not and won't complete.

So my one piece of advice, if you get an on the spot side mission/task, do it then and there because holding it off and doing something else will eventually bug that step.

Fuck, even a mission to upgrade a Nomad item, I already built it and 2 days later I get a mission to make it.
OMG. BUGGED!

No game I've played they've made has been this bad at this system.

Yeah, it's atrocious. The whole inventory and UI system in this game feels archaic.
 

Lister

Banned
I'm not understanding the crafting system. Take this for example, the Black Widow sniper rifle is suppose to have 3 bullets in its clip and about 637 damage:

1) I developed a Black Widow with a laser aug and 2 augs for bonus damage against shields and armour. The stats told me I got 3 clips and 637 damage, but the gun turned out so weak that I couldn't even kill an unarmoured/unshielded Kett soldier with a headshot. It took 3 full bullets, despite the fact that 637 is more than enough to kill a Kett soldier without armour.

2) I develop the same exact gun but without the laser aug, I end up with a Black Widow with not only 1 bullet in the clip instead of the advertised 3, but ONE Max ammo...ONE !!

Wtf? If there are drawbacks to using augs or something else then it's not clearly conveyed here.

There's a ton of shit about weapons not being surfaced to the player.

I made a sniper rifle that should be mowing down enemies, but the damn thing wasn't doing ANYTHING. Like zero damage to anyone.

Now I don't know if this is a "Feature" of the damn thing or a visual bug that just happens to coincide witht he fact that this thing can't hit anything further that 10 meters away, but I noticed that the projectiles (more like red lightingin that comes out of this thing) suffer from some fuckign ridiculous bullet drop.

10 meters away the things land on the ground. To hit somehting relatively close I have ot aim like a meter above it to hit it. This si a sniper rifle for fucks sake.
 

nOoblet16

Member
So I figured out why the first monolith I visited in Eos wouldn't activate. The game seems to expect you activate them in a very specific order, if you do them in any other order they won't activate. This is reflected in dialogue. Peebee makes a reference to Drack, whom I already had met, yet there is no dialogue to reflect that. Compare this with the original trilogy, where dialogue would change slightly based on the order you completed missions. Liara's dialogue when you meet her was different depending on whether you did the Therum mission shortly after the Citadel or much later.



Every big galaxy has one of those massive black holes at the center, including the Milky Way. Better pack it up to the Magellanic Clouds.
It's only Eos where that happens, activating Vaults aren't even considered primary quest in some world and you can do story without activating them. Your interaction with squad changes depending on what you've done previously and who you have with you..it's still in the game.
 

nOoblet16

Member
The slowness of the galaxy map grew on me a bit even though the zoom in/zoom out is still pretty jarring. I really like the idea of the Scourge and seeing stuff like that giant black hole as you wrap around.

Though seriously, that black hole...I would be kinda terrified to settle in a galaxy with that at the center, lol.
Every big galaxy has a supermassive black hole at its centre, hundreds of times more massive than what the Heleus cluster might have.

Again a black hole is just a bigger gravity well, there's nothing about settling in a cluster with a black hole at its centre is more scary than living in a planet that revolves around a constantly burning ball of gas. The environment, stars and planets around the black hole have already adapted to its existence, so it's not going to do anything suddenly that destroys everything.
 
Does anyone know how to get assists in multiplayer? Can't find anything about it online.

You a passive power like Annihilation Field. It damages any enemy that comes within it range, so even when your teammates kill them you still get the assist. I get so many assist badges it is crazy.
 
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